BigRedX

IMO that's your problem right there. Stop listening to streaming music and instead choose digital music with no data compression. Even delivery medium has it's strengths and weaknesses. We all prefer the ones that we are used to because we have become accustomed to the sound, rather than because it is actually "better".

The Revox B77 (and A77 for that matter) is a semi-pro machine at best.

There's a whole host of problems here and it could be any one of them or several in combination. 1. How good is the sound system in your car? IME most are fairly average. 2. Is is a stream or a download from Amazon Prime that you are listening to? Do you know what data compression has been used and how much has been applied? 3. Do you know how this version of "Superstition" was created? The sad fact is that for a lot of older recordings (almost everything before CDs became mainstream in the 90s) the original master tapes have been lost or destroyed, and what is easily available is what is known as a "production" master, and it may already have additional EQ and level compression applied. Back in the day when there was only vinyl as a serious delivery medium that didn't matter. The production master was set up for cutting vinyl and that's what it was used for. It meant that every time it was used to make a new acetate for record manufacturing it would sound the same as the previous one, and all the pressings wherever they were produced would sound the same as each other (within the limitations of what vinyl can reproduce). As soon as it starts getting used for other media there are problems, because the production master hasn't been created for the purposes of making CDs/streams/digital downloads. Each one requires the master to be created in a different way, and a lot of the time they are not. It takes a lot of time and effort and often detective work to find the original stereo (or mono - remember for most recordings made before the end of the 60s the mono mix of an album was the one that had the time and effort put into it, and the stereo version would be dashed off in a couple of hours once the mono version had been finished and approved) master tape and optimise the audio for all the various digital formats, and even then listeners complain that the new versions don't sound like they remember, and of course if the original artist(s) is involved in the process it can be very tempting to tinker with the mastering to take advantage of processes that weren't available when the original was mixed. 4. Finally what are you comparing this version to? That will have a significant impact on how they differ. HTH.

That's looking good! But, you've missed out the all-important weight in your last post...

I used to own a Lightwave bass with the optical pickup system. The idea is great because you can use all sorts of strings and not limit yourself to ones with magnetic properties. In practice however you need to consider the following: 1. There's a lot of electronics that need to be fitted into the instrument. On the bass I had all of the space beneath the bridge/pickup construction and most of the lower half of the body was routed out for this. Great if you like a light-weight bass, but also plenty of things to potentially go wrong, although they didn't while the bass was in my ownership. 2. To provide power for all of this required a rechargeable battery and propriety PSU unit for charging. Also because my bass was imported from the US I also needed a 240-110V step-down transformer for the PSU. 3. Setting up the pickup mechanism when you changed strings was a complicated and time-consuming task. Not only did you have to re-align the pickup with the string (very important if the new set required intonation adjustment), but there were also individual trim pots on the circuit board that had to be adjusted for each string to ensure a balanced output across them all. 4. The bridge design on the bass I had (mk2 bridge and pickup system, and I believe that there is an even newer design now), didn't make adjusting the intonation easy and there was more vertical travel available in the saddles than the optical sensor mechanism, which meant that is was possible to position the string out of range. My bass came with both a fretted and fretless neck, and the fretless neck had to be shimmed in order to keep the saddles within range when fitted. 5. I could never get on with the piezo pickup that was also fitted, probably because I'm quite a physical player and the amount of body routing meant that this was essentially a hollow-bodied instrument, and therefore it picked up too much handling noise. As a result I tried two different string types before the hassle of having to completely reset the bass for each new type, became too much bother and then I stuck with my second choice. So if you want to experiment with lots of different types of strings and have the time and inclination for the set up required every time you change, then it's worth looking at. If you are buying second-hand make sure that you get a bass with at least the MK2 bridge and pickups (the original system had even more problems) and that if necessary it comes with a transformer for the PSU. Here's some photos of the bass I used to own showing the bridge, and the size of the electronics cavity (IIRC all the space below that cover is full of circuit board).

Except the notched straight edge is for the two common guitar scale lengths only and therefore no use for basses. I've just had a look on the Crimson website and they don't appear to do any bass scale-length versions.

IME it is only worth privately importing any music instrument if all of the following are satisfied: 1. The brand/manufacturer does not have a distributer in your country. 2. It is second hand. 3. It is something you really want and you can afford the price including shipping VAT and import duty. Edit: A Stingray does not fall into the categories above. Suspect that by the time you've added on shipping VAT import changes and handling fees it will be about the same as buying one in the same condition in the UK.

Doesn't work for properly me. I've just checked the "How was your gig last night?" thread in which I have posted on multiple occasions - and between 2011 and 2015 almost every week. Using the thread URL as the domain and my user name in the "this exact word or phrase:" field it brings up exactly 4 results - 2 where my user name is also included in the URL of a photo I posted, once when someone has quoted me, and once when I have edited my post. And even posts with these attributes should be more numerous. I don't even get the usual Google message saying that similar results have been hidden. Even if it did work it's nowhere near as convenient as being to search for your posts within a thread directly on the site and get a lst of results in the normal way.

At the moment you can't. I asked this question a few months ago and that's the answer I got.

No. Music like all art is entirely subjective. what makes a song “good”? A clever musical construction or simply the fact that lots of people like it? These two attributes are not necessarily equal. I’ll listen to anything once and then make up my own mind whether I like it or not, and therefore for repeated listens I’ll go with what I like, and not what someone else tells me is “good”.

When I'm writing I'll start off unplugged as it allows me to concentrate on the notes and my ability to play them properly. Also I can pick up the bass an start working instantly without needing to set up any additional equipment, plus I won't get distracted by trying out different sounds. I'll only plug in one I've got to the point where I'm working on the arrangement and need to be able to hear the other instruments and the actual sounds I'll be using on the bass become important. Then I'll use a combination of Helix, DAW and monitoring on headphones. I'll finally switch to speakers once the whole band are working on the song or general band rehearsal.

How appropriate a dep/sub is will very much depend on the band. Originals bands, especially those with an image may well struggle to find someone who can learn the songs quickly enough and still look the part on stage. I've been in originals band that have used deps in the past and my experience of it has been less than brilliant, and in future I'd seriously consider cancelling the gig than give my audience a second-rate experience. Even a simple instruction like "wear black, no trainers or prominent brand/band logos" has turned out to be too difficult for some musicians to grasp.

Nice, and good to see that Reverend are now using something slightly more prominent to write on their serial numbers. My Rumblefish had a small indistinct black mark on the back of the headstock which I wiped off before realising that it was supposed to be the serial number! If you don't need all the options of a ten-way switch consider swapping out one of the pots for one with a pull switch to separately turn on either the neck or bridge pickup which will then also give you neck + bridge and all three pickups as options. This is fitted as standard to my Burn Barracuda, and I've found it most useful.

Grrrr... I'm in the middle of trying to convince one of my clients not to mix metric and imperial measurements in a recipe, and if they must, then at least use the most appropriate one for the ingredient being measured.

Almost all Music Tribe products (Behringer's parent group that includes TC etc.) are suffering from the chip shortage problem.

I'm not raining on anything, but simply pointing out that when you have built up the required skills and have easy access to all the information you need and a workshop full of power tools, you would actually have to deliberately make mistakes in order to produce something that wasn't at least, good. At the risk of sounding like a Monty Python sketch, when I built my own solid electric instruments in the late 70s the only source of information about how to make your own guitar was Stephen Delft's monthly series of articles in International Musician magazine. There was no Stewmac and the like for getting supplies, so several issues were given over to how to modify existing woodworking tools to make them suitable for guitar building, and two articles were dedicated to making your own truss rod from scratch (the alternative at the time would have been to remove a functional one from an existing guitar). My two instruments were made almost entirely with hand tools, at school we weren't allowed to use power tools ourselves, but the woodwork teacher did put my rough cut wood blanks through the planner and cut out the body shape (very roughly) on the bandsaw. However everything else was done by hand and I probably spent as much time sharpening plane and chisel blades as I did actually shaping the wood. Each instrument took the whole school year to make and I spent every lesson where I wasn't actually required to be in class for one of my A Level subjects in the woodwork shop. Therefore having gone through the process myself I know how much easier having a fully equipped workshop with all the modern power tools at your disposal would make it. That's not to say that the end result in the video isn't impressive, but it's tempered by the fact that IMO you'd have to be a complete numpty in that situation not to make something good.

Technically yes. However you'll need to take into account the following: 1. That you can match the level of the DI signal using the input gain on the second amp 2. That even if you can take a pre-EQ feed for the DI the first amp may well have already applied some processing to the signal so you might not be able to get both amps to sound the same. 3. You may run into earth loops problems and need to isolate the earth on the DI lead. The best thing to do is to make up a lead and try it. I suggest you make up your own lead as that will give you more flexibility if you need to experiment with decoupling the earth. And if you were to run a signal splitter it would be better positioned near the amp rather than on your pedal board, as that way you only need one long cable from the board to the amp.

And here's an article form 1985 with a fairly comprehensive technical description of the cutting process. And two more articles that follow on describing the whole record manufacturing stages.

Here's an mid 80s article about George Peckham: from One Two Testing...

Impressive. But... Looking at her other videos she's already got some serious woodworking skills and a very well equipped workshop, plus these days all the information you need to make a guitar or bass is easily available on-line, so it shouldn't really be any surprise that the finished bass turned out good.

IIRC either International Musician or Sounds International printed an article on Porky and Bilbo and the art of cutting vinyl sometime in the late 70s (or maybe early 80s).

In the pre-digital days the mastering and cutting were pretty much one and the same since vinyl was the only serious delivery medium. The only time you would perhaps need to use some mastering techniques prior to cutting would be if you were making a compilation LP with the tracks coming from disparates sources, although I used to have several such albums from the late 70 and early 80s where the only attempt to homogenise the tracks appeared to be making sure that they all peaked at the same level. This is why cutting engineers like Porky and Bilbo (almost all my albums from the 70 were either "Porky Prime Cuts" or "Bilbo Boppers") were so respected and in demand. Incidentally regarding the messages on the runout groove, the first record any of my music appear on is a "Porky Prime Cut" even though none of our band attended the cutting session. However I believe The Instant Automatons who were also on the record and essentially our record label were there.

For many stereo was a gimmick. Remember that for Sgt Pepper all the time was spent on the mono mixes and stereo version was dashed off in an afternoon afterwards. I think that if the recording has been conceived from the outset to be mixed in 5.1 that's good, but anything else is an artifice.

It's no longer the 60s, 70s or even the 80s, and these days the only bands who need their own PA are those playing covers in pubs. On the originals circuit any venue putting on bands on a regular basis have their own in-house system. The only time in the last 30 years that I have played originals somewhere that didn't have an in-house PA system (and we needed to hire one in) was when the band in question deliberately chose to play a venue that didn't normally put on live music.

The problem with vinyl is because it is a mechanical delivery medium there are various limitations as to what can actually be reproduced and they all have to be checked for and fixed if necessary, and that's before you get into the complications of optimising the running order of an album so that you get the best possible reproduction for each track in relation to its physical location on the record. This can often require a compromise between what the artist wants and what will give the best overall listening experience.